However, it doesn’t work through Facebook’s interface but via WeChat, the biggest app in the region, and was released by a local company called Youge Internet Technology.

The trials were first reported by The New York Times, which described the quiet rollout as “unprecedented” and evidence of how Facebook is trying to “see how Chinese users digitally share information with their friends or interact with their favorite social media platforms.”

Meanwhile, Facebook told The Verge that it is “spending time understanding and learning more about the country in different ways. Our focus right now is on helping Chinese businesses and developers expand to new markets outside China by using our ad platform.”

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